Federal Minister for Health Mustafa Kamal has Sunday said that Pakistan is one of the last two countries in the world, alongside Afghanistan, where polio remains endemic. Despite global efforts to eradicate the virus, challenges such as security issues, vaccine hesitancy, and misinformation have slowed progress.
Talking to media on Sunday, Health minister said that of the families refusing to immunise their children against poliovirus, 85 per cent of them reside in Karachi alone.
Addressing a press conference in Karachi, the heath minister said that currently, 44,000 families in the country have refused to vaccinate their children against polio. “At this moment, in Pakistan, there are 44,000 refusals, with 34,000 in Karachi alone,” he lamented. “That is a figure of 85-90pc.”
“Of those 34,000 families refusing to vaccinate their children, 27,000 hail from District East,” he added.
Kamal said that he met with five MPAs and two MNAs from District East, with the aim of understanding the vaccination system in Karachi and across the country and how to make future campaigns “100pc successful”. “I want to tell everyone in Pakistan that polio exists in Karachi, but the reason why people are not being affected is because of prevention,” he emphasised.
The health minister highlighted that there is a polio drive ongoing in neighbouring Afghanistan and lamented that Kabul has a more comprehensive immunisation programme than Islamabad.
He announced that the upcoming anti-polio vaccination campaign will start from the 21st of this month.
Mustafa Kamal said that vaccination is only remedy to get rid of this polio disease. The Minister urged parents to get their children administered vaccines to get rid of this disease from the country.
This is the first time that a simultaneous polio vaccination campaign is happening in both Afghanistan and Pakistan, he concluded.